Memphis, retailer help stranded boater

While making a Mississippi River trek from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico and on to Costa Rica, David Stewart's kayak was stolen from the boat ramp under the Auction Street Bridge, along with all his supplies, leaving him stranded in Memphis.

Mary Cashiola with the city of Memphis presents kayaker David Stewart, 30, a check from Mayor A C Wharton to help him replace his stolen belongings. A group gathered outside the Midtown Outdoors Inc. store Tuesday to help Stewart continue his trip downriver. Outdoors Inc. gave him a replacement kayak and others donated money and camping supplies to Stewart.

David Stewart has biked across North America and Mexico, backpacked through Europe and Southeast Asia, and has now (almost) paddled the length of the Mississippi River.

But if Stewart had thought he'd seen it all, well, that was before he landed in The Bluff City.

Midway through a kayaking trip from Minnesota to Costa Rica down the Mississippi River, Stewart tied up his boat near the Auction Street Bridge in Memphis Friday night and left to run a few errands.

He returned a few hours later to find the 17-foot kayak had been stolen along with his paddles, tent, sleeping bag, food, and clothes.

"My heart sunk. It started to rain. They took everything," Stewart said.

But on Tuesday afternoon Stewart arrived at Outdoors, Inc. on Union to find a new, $2,000 kayak waiting for him. Within the hour, Stewart had piles of camping gear at his feet, envelopes of money in his hands and a look of utter shock across his face.

"I am just overwhelmed by the generosity of Memphis," Stewart said. "I've never seen anything like this in all my days ... and I'm old — I'm 30!"

It all started when Joe Royer, the owner of Outdoors, Inc., read about the paddler's plight in The Commercial Appeal Tuesday morning. "I thought to myself, 'This is not the Memphis we all know,' and at a staff meeting that morning everyone agreed we had to get this guy a kayak," Royer said.

"We wanted to help this young man, but we also wanted to get the word out to the world that Memphis is a generous, good city."

After news of Royer's plans to give Stewart a kayak spread on Facebook and Twitter, people throughout the city started coming by the store to drop off supplies, cash and well-wishes for Stewart. Even Memphis Mayor A C Wharton joined in once he heard the news, asking the city to step up and help out.

After discovering his kayak was gone, the dejected, rain-soaked traveler flagged down the first bus he found, rode it until he saw a Motel 6 and booked himself a room in hopes that the police or coast guard might have good news for him by the morning.

When nothing turned up the next day, Stewart found a cheap hotel with a weekly rate and decided that if he couldn't get his boat back by the following Saturday then his trip would be over.

"I thought I was going to be going back home on Saturday empty-handed," Stewart said. "I felt like I was going to be a failure going home not completing my goal."

But it was clear on Tuesday that wasn't going to be the case, particularly when a representative from Wharton's office pulled up to hand him a $100 check from the mayor.

When the Utah native isn't traveling the world, he sells home security systems and upon returning home, Stewart joked, he would try his hand at inventing a kayak alarm.

Scott Banbury of the Sierra Club bounded toward the store Tuesday with a box full of donations to add to Stewart's pile, which included as many Sierra Club T-shirts as they could spare. Banbury embraced the young man, whom he had never met before, and offered him his own couch to sleep on for the night.